Still standing

Charles M. Madigan, Tribune senior correspondentCHICAGO TRIBUNE

A year later, the nation still grieves and heals, as though it were a tough soldier who suffered a serious combat injury that will leave a lasting scar, but not one deep or permanent enough to keep the country down.

The fiery terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon seared both the nation's heart and soul, putting its fabled resilience to historic test. From its government to its people to the way it interacts with the world, America has changed.

But the damage, the sense of loss, that flowed from America's worst terrorist incident has not been evenly spread, and it would be wrong to say everything has been changed forever, one of the most common responses in the days just after the attacks.

After 12 months of tough political talk and heavy military action in the battle against terrorism in Afghanistan, a reluctant America feels the pull of another war, this one to topple a despot in Iraq, even before we know the results of the first.

Support for increases in defense spending buttresses almost universal backing for the military. Security has become America's most robust new growth industry.

Armed guards staff checkpoints at corporate headquarters. Camouflaged National Guard Humvees and state police patrol cars sit outside nuclear power plants. At airports, some people are asked to stand for a toes-to-head frisk, sometimes waiting barefoot while their sneakers are subjected to bomb-sniffing machines.

There has also been an erosion of something more difficult to define, the sense that the United States was an open, welcoming place, for its own citizens and for people drawn to the country by jobs and education, either to improve themselves or to build better futures for their families. There is a sense that rights and freedoms, although not slashed, have been diminished by thin slices.

Kids wearing backpacks to museums and state and federal parks must open them up and display their peanut butter sandwiches and cookies to security guards looking for weapons or suicide bombs. The National Park Service has added 50 armed rangers to its staff in Philadelphia, home of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

Hundreds of foreigners who may have violated rarely enforced aspects of immigration law have been held without charges. Middle Eastern college students have seen their hopes evaporate for visas that will get them back to American colleges this fall.

People who merely "look Muslim" become targets for an informal scrutiny, particularly at airports and on airplanes.

Homeland security has grown into a mammoth plan for a Department of Homeland Security, a superagency aimed at addressing domestic insecurities at every level. It would be the largest federal reorganization since the Defense Department was created after World War II.

A national health system exhausted by years of wrestling over costs and coverage finds itself gearing up for biological and chemical warfare responses as concerns spread about the availability of anthrax powder and smallpox bacteria. Civil defense, a concept that died with the end of the Cold War, has been reborn.

The attack touched individuals in different ways, perhaps one measure of how complicated America can be.

Some people will not pause to think about what happened in Manhattan exactly a year ago, when the twin towers of the World Trade Center seemed to disappear, one face of the Pentagon collapsed and a plane plowed into a field outside of Pittsburgh.

Their lives have moved on.

Other concerns--a troubling economy, the daily challenges, the noise, distractions and delights of life, their own obliviousness--have carried them far from the excavated ruins of the trade center and the repaired facade of the Pentagon.

Others will stumble over this tragedy in the course of their daily lives, the people who see the hole in the ground, or the hole in the sky in New York, or mourn a loss at the Pentagon or in the airplane crash outside of Pittsburgh.

For them, the images of a horrific day will be revived by their imaginations or will visit them in their nightmares.

Some people were so deeply frightened by what happened that the ghosts of Sept. 11 seem to reside just beneath the surface, waiting to be called out. Their reactions are unanticipated and unusual.

For them, community rituals are now seen in a different light.

Jets stir up fear

As Chicago prepared in August for the Air and Water Show, Air Force and Navy jets buzzed the city for thunderous and dramatic practice sessions. Tens of thousands of people thrilled not only to the practices, but also to the performance.

But it wasn't that way for everyone.

"With the Air and Water Show and the planes buzzing around downtown, it affected a lot more people than I expected," said Dr. Daniel Yohanna, an expert in depression and anxiety who is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University.

The practice sessions revived the anxieties of people who had reacted most intensely to the images of planes flying into the World Trade Center in New York on the day of the attacks.

"I have patients who it took four to eight weeks to return to their offices they were so uncomfortable after 9/11," Yohanna said. "With planes buzzing around the buildings and shadows being cast on their desks, that was revived for a lot of them. Of course the people we are seeing are only the ones most affected by that, but the Air and Water Show really surprised me. I don't think they were the only ones bothered by it."

For most Americans, the reaction has been less profound.

John and Pat Henek, who live in Oak Park, may serve as a more accurate model of the way people have responded.

There are little pieces of everyone's story in their story, flashes of memory and persistent worries that revive a sense of connection to the tragedy.

"We didn't know anyone involved . . . so there is not a direct relationship," said John Henek, 62, who retired 10 years ago from Sears Roebuck & Co. and now runs a business out of his home with his wife, also 62.

"Whenever we go into the Loop and I look at the Sears Tower sticking up--I used to work there--we think about what might happen in the future. So in that sense, I guess it did have a personal impact."

Pat Henek says she feels the same way.

"I keep seeing a plane going into it," she said. "I don't get that with any other building, just the Sears Tower."

Sometimes the thought lingers for a split second, and then it is gone.

"I don't get upset about it, but I do feel it when I look at that tower. It's a spooky feeling."

But the most direct reminder of their connection to the attacks came from their business. They produce needlepoint patterns that they sell on the Internet. They have Irish harps, flowers, cityscapes, a collection of Americana to keep busy fingers occupied with the endless and meticulous challenges of cross-stitching.

"We happened to have a design for the skyline of New York, and it had the World Trade Center in it. We used to sell maybe five or six a year, and suddenly, we started getting a bunch of orders and we didn't know why," he said. "People were ordering them because of those towers and that stitching. We didn't advertise it, it just spread by word of mouth. We sold 500 of them in the first year, and that's a lot."

But the sales presented the couple with what they viewed as an ethical problem.

"Even though we didn't promote it, it felt like we were taking advantage of the attack. It felt so weird that something we had had for a long time suddenly became popular because of the attack," he said.

They decided to give the money to St. Giles, their Oak Park church.

"That is probably the single most direct feeling we have had, the most direct connection to it," he said.

Worrying and caring

An amalgam of vulnerability and compassion has developed across the nation over the past year. Even as people continue to worry about more terrorist attacks, they want to reach out to help.

If the United States is haunted, however momentarily, by images of the terrorist assault, it has also opened its heart to the victims, to the firefighters and police officers. Patriotism is deep, abiding and superficial, all at once.

Cars now sprout American flags or have them pasted to their windows.

"God Bless America," a song that had fallen into disuse with the passing of its key presenter, Kate Smith, somehow sparked back to life after a collection of congressmen gathered to sing it on the steps of the Capitol. It has become a common tune at public events.

Patriotic displays, from the cornball to the eloquent, pop up on every holiday, and during every war and national crisis in American history. The nation has invented a collection of slogans, from "United We Stand," to "God Bless America," to reflect the weight of the event.

"Immediately afterward, people had to say something, and something big because it was such a big event," said Bernard Beck, an associate professor of sociology at Northwestern who specializes in popular culture. "That's where the phrase, `Things will never be the same again,' came from."

But Beck cautions that while this anniversary will get a flood of attention, it's futile to try to say anything conclusive about America and how it has coped. It is, essentially, a story that changes and develops every day.

"A year later, everyone wants to take stock, but it's much too soon to take stock," Beck said. "The story hasn't worked itself out yet. If the question is, `Are we changed forever or is it back to business as usual?' it is such a complicated world that the answer is both, depending on who, what and the relationship to the event."

Gauging perceptions

There are some specific measures of how the nation has reacted.

The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations commissioned a worldwide poll a few months ago to check perceptions in the U.S. and around the world in relation to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among the questions asked in the survey was this one aimed at Americans: "What do you see as the most important lesson of Sept. 11?"

The largest number of respondents (15 percent) said the need to be more alert was the most important lesson, with the second largest group (12 percent) saying "Keeping your guard up," which amounts to the same thing. Right behind those responses, though, was "Americans pulling together," (11 percent) which the polling analysis said reflected a "willingness to help each other."

William Braden, chief executive officer of the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago, said that willingness was apparent in Chicago immediately after the incident, and to this day. Some 1,000 people called the Red Cross to volunteer, most of them wanting to go immediately to New York to help.

"The response was remarkable," he said.

The agency has now set up an intensive educational program to teach volunteers to prepare for future disasters.

The scattering of responses far down on the table was revealing too.

Six percent of respondents said "Don't trust anyone" was the most important lesson, and one can almost hear the cynical voices in the bars and byways of the nation, warning of potential betrayal at every turn.

Just beneath that group, though, was a handful of respondents who said, "Take one day at a time and be grateful you are alive," perhaps reflecting the views of the optimists.

Bunched down at the bottom were survey results that, if they had voices, might sound like an argument around a national dinner table. "Have faith in God" (4 percent), "Don't take things for granted" (4 percent), "Take all threats seriously" (3 percent) and "Expect the unexpected" (2 percent). Scattered across a collection of 2 percent and 1 percent responses were: "Need to unify with other countries to stop terrorism," "The importance of family and friends," "Tighten airport security," "Need to mind our own business," "There are people around the world that hate the U.S." and "We should worry about America first."

Fundamental shift

Cotton Fite would most likely fit into the "The importance of family and friends" category, along with the "Don't take things for granted" grouping and perhaps strongly into the "Have faith in God" group.

Fite, 64, is a clinical psychologist, director of counseling at Lutheran General Hospital and an Episcopal priest.

"Generally, I think we had the illusion or the assumption that we were beyond the reach of our enemies, and that is now gone, and that in fact we are more like the rest of the world, how the rest of the world lives, with some anticipation," Fite said.

"It's pretty easy to go back to the old assumptions, but I think this event has worked a kind of fundamental change. We are not beyond the reach of our enemies. There is also this renewed burst of patriotism and pride, along with the recognition that there is a lunatic fringe that always emerges at times like this.

"These kinds of things happen every 20 years or so. Something will happen and we recall that we are a pretty resilient people. I think we are still mystified about why the world doesn't just love us."

He said the response has also included a civics lesson that plays out every day.

The Bush administration, he noted, has been called to task by the federal courts for its handling of immigration issues and imprisonment without charge of visa violators. Its loud arguments about the need for a war to unseat Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have been met by skepticism and opposition in Congress.

"I am just so grateful for the structure of our government. Vice President Dick Cheney is saying, `Lets go on the war' and [U.S. Rep.] Henry Hyde is saying we should hold hearings before that happens," Fite said.

There are some measures that show that Fite's regard for American government spreads across the nation, along with his concerns about government behavior in the wake of the attacks.

At the University of Chicago, the National Opinion Research Center conducted two big surveys, one just after the Sept. 11 attacks and one three to five months after, that provided a glimpse both of the patriotic fervor that spread across America after the attacks and how hard it is to understand the complex blend of attitudes.

In the center's study just after the attacks, 96.9 percent of the respondents said they would "rather be a citizen of America than of any other country in the world." That result had not changed much a few months later.

But under half of the respondents agreed with the statement "The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like Americans," and less than a third agreed with the phrase, "People should support their country even if the country is in the wrong."

Those results stayed the same too.

The study also tried to gauge emotional responses five months after the event, comparing them to emotional responses just after the attacks. In general, "the most common lingering effect" of the attack was difficulty sleeping. A third of the people across the nation and just over a third of the New Yorkers questioned reported having insomnia.

If emotional responses have lingered over the past year, attitudes changed by the event have too.

Surprisingly, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations' Worldviews 2002 study showed Americans still find common ground with Muslims, viewing them as being "like people everywhere." Conflict between the two cultures is not inevitable, said 66 percent of the respondents to the council's poll.

But that means about a quarter of the population still sees a violent conflict with Islam as inevitable, which has made many Americans suspicious of anyone who appears even vaguely Muslim.

One of the most recent examples came two months ago on an American Trans Air flight from Chicago to New York.

Ravi Verma was excited about the plane's approach to New York, according to news accounts, and wanted to point out the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the buildings of the financial district to his wife and two daughters.

It is a common experience for anyone who has flown into New York at night, a city whose glows and twinkles invite finger pointing and "oh wows!"

Verma's "oh wows!" were coming in Malayalam, the language of Kerala in southern India.

Passengers on the plane grew suspicious and reported the Indian family to the flight crew, which informed the pilot, who informed security, which scrambled two fighter jets to "escort" the plane to La Guardia Airport.

Questioned for hours

Verma and his family were met on the ground by federal, state and local authorities who took him, his wife, two daughters, two traveling companions and another man into custody for four hours of extensive questioning.

Their intentions, it turned out, were not terrorism but sightseeing. They were released without charge.

One of Verma's daughters is a beloved film star back home and the family was on a U.S. tour. The two traveling companions arrested were an Indian pop star and a comedian. The other man was detained because he was seated nearby and looked, apparently, like someone suspicious.

"The policemen had guns, and we had never seen anything like this except maybe in films," said Samyuktha Verma, the movie star.

"We were scared because we didn't know what to do or what we had done."

The airline issued a statement that it will "continue doing everything we can to ensure the safety of our passengers."

But the nation's concerns, some would say its paranoia, about foreigners who look Middle Eastern have a more troubling side.

Hundreds of foreign nationals with visa problems are being held while they await immigration hearings and potential deportations that the U.S. government wants to keep secret. They were rounded up by federal agents in the days and weeks after Sept. 11 as the government pursued a worldwide investigation into the backgrounds of the terrorists and the organizations they represented.

A federal court ruled two weeks ago that the government must at least release the names of the people it is detaining, but that ruling was stayed at the government's request while it prepares an appeal. A federal appeals court has also ruled the cloak of secrecy should be lifted from the proceedings. The Justice Department is appealing that decision too.

The war on terrorism has kept the subject in the public eye for most of the year, first with a massive bombing campaign that drove the Taliban out of government in Afghanistan, and now with a difficult and dangerous search of mountain caves and hide-outs along the Pakistani border in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

So far, at least 41 soldiers, pilots, sailors and one U.S. intelligence agent have been killed in the action, either by enemy troops, by "friendly" fire or in accidents connected to the effort.

Public support fades

The public was overwhelmingly supportive of the Bush administration's military effort early on, but support for the president, though still robust, has started to erode. Skepticism is also growing about the administration's loudly discussed plans for another war, in Iraq.

Most Americans believe the U.S. should invade Iraq only if it can win support from the United Nations and construct a coalition of its allies.

In the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations' Worldviews survey, 13 percent said the U.S. should not invade Iraq. Sixty-five percent said it should invade and try to overthrow Hussein but just 20 percent said the U.S. should go it alone in warring against Baghdad.

Those results underline one of the most significant hidden changes in the wake of the attacks.

Once almost isolationist, most Americans now believe that the world's remaining superpower should be aggressive in joining its allies to confront threats and evils.

The important message sent by the first year after the terrorist attacks seems to be one of resiliency. No matter how overwhelming the tragedy, there is a sense that the nation has healed itself many times before, and will find its way past this injury too.

"I suspect that every year, this anniversary will have less impact," said Yohanna, the psychologist.